*NATIVE PLANT OF THE WEEK*⁠ ⁠ Winter can feel long, especially when the garden is quiet and color feels like a distant memory. This is the moment when it helps to remember what carried the garden through just a few months ago—and what will do it again next year. Enter aromatic aster.⁠ ⁠ Aromatic aster (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium, Zones 4–9)⁠ ⁠ If fall belongs to asters, this is one of the standouts. Aromatic aster is native to much of the U.S. and blooms late, with clouds of small lavender-blue flowers that open in September and often linger into November. It’s a magnet for butterflies and other pollinators at a time when nectar is scarce.⁠ ⁠ In winter, its value doesn’t disappear. Seedheads feed birds, and standing stems provide shelter for stem-nesting native bees—quiet work happening while the rest of the garden rests.⁠ ⁠ Where it comes from⁠ Native to open woodlands, prairies, and rocky outcrops from the Mid-Atlantic south to North Carolina and west to Montana and New Mexico.⁠ ⁠ ...